Global Warming

Mass Walk-Out at UN Climate Talks Protests Lack of Progress

A massive walk-out of 800 delegates from non-governmental organisations characterised the second-last day of the 19th Conference of the Parties (COP19) to the Kyoto Protocol in Warsaw, Poland, on Thursday. The delegates were protesting against the low ambition of the conference, the influence of dirty energy and the lack of new financing.

Many of the 800 people involved are members of national delegations and are an important part of pushing the negotiations to a successful conclusion.

The groups concerned, some of them—like ActionAid, Oxfam and World Wildlife Fund—normally considered moderate, issued a joint statement saying that the climate talks here were set to “achieve virtually nothing.”

The statement said:

The actions of many rich countries here in Warsaw are directly undermining the Climate Change Convention itself, which is an important multilateral process that must succeed if we are to fix the global climate crisis.

The Warsaw Conference has put the interests of dirty energy industries over that of global citizens—with a Coal & Climate Summit being held in conjunction; corporate sponsorship from big polluters plastered all over the venue; and a presidency (Poland) that is beholden to the coal and fracking industry.

When Japan announced that it was following Canada and backtracking on emission cuts commitments previously made, and Australia gave multiple signals that it was utterly unwilling to take the UN climate process seriously, the integrity of the talks was further jeopardised.